Aussie IT warranty company closes after 14 years

Australian IT warranty company National Warranty Services (NWS) has closed after 14 years in business.

In an email sent to customers on 4 January, seen by ARN, the company's managing director Don Card advised the business closure as of 21 December 2018.

In a long and very detailed email to customers, Card said that for 12 years the company had done well enough and was a profitable business until things went south after he decided to take a month off leaving the company in someone else's hands.

According to the email, Card came back to find that no work had been done in his absence.

Card explained that things including answering phones, organising and managing jobs, organising and ordering parts and follow-up jobs had not been done.

As a result, the company lost more than 60 per cent of its gross turn over in three months, according to Card.

"Now, as our business is a repeat business, built on service quality (and ease of use), since then, as you may imagine, it has been a real struggle to recover from such a sudden massive loss of business," wrote Card.

As Card tried to maintain and bring the business back up again for the past 18 months, he had to go into personal bankruptcy after using his personal assets to support NWS.

The company won't offer services, even to those who had already paid for it while its VoIP and 1300 numbers have been disconnected.

At this stage, the website is still up with systems operational so customers can track their 'exposure'.

Resellers should receive a detailed report with information for those who have active or future inactive warranties.

Meanwhile, service agents outstanding payments will not be made, with the company still being able to issue a report to service agents about jobs currently logged as not paid.

"My biggest professional personal disappointment and huge upset is for those (very few) resellers who remained loyal to me and to NWS," Card wrote. "Unfortunately, guys, it ended up simply not being enough, as much as we tried to stay afloat month after month, specifically for you."

“We are definitely looking for partners that will help take NWS, not just to the next level, but several levels beyond where we are now, and maintain our core focus on service delivery, and constant innovation and improvement,” Card told ARN at the time.

“For NWS specifically, as well as the Australian market, we would love to leverage our Cloud-based systems to expand overseas.

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